Balance
by Knyx
Summary: Midna returns home as leader, but something's out of 'balance.' Hence the title Link tries to find a purpose in life. Zelda lost her tact, and doesn't care. Midna/Link/Zelda. Mild language- Slight humor-Imagery. True to TP characters as I see. No gush.
1. MPrologue 1

She held her head high- high and proud and sure. They needn't look on her with pity, as though _reluctant_ to return. No! She could feel the sweet silken shadow envelop her legs, bare skin giving way to the tide that urged her backward.

A rush of chill air bit at her eyes, unused to _home_. Soothing, shrieking voices lingered in her ears, saying nothing in the chaos yet sounding… so familiar. Her lips bent into a small smile, and she spun slowly about to face her subjects. Whatever the Twili cheered of, their voices surpassed all music. Intent on basking in the natural splendor of her world and her people, she stood before them in the false stoicism of her ancestry. The kind her father showed after her mother died, the kind she learned in the throne room that day- she'd call on that for the moment and push back sleep to revel in the familiarity of the sound.

Her music died steadily as every pair of eyes, brilliantly golden to dusk-red, past her and shone on the horizon behind. Shadows formed before her, growing, engulfing her crowd. Two brilliant orbs of soft light swirled about the mirror's former place. The body of the crowd took her attention further, as her kin dropped to their knees in reverence and awe.

Something- something had gone awry… Midna narrowed her eyes. The dual suns shone and twisted in place of her entrance, calling shadows to dance about her feet. Why? The lights made no effort to break from their course- benign and beautiful. Her eyelids felt like lead. This phenomenon would allow her time to comprehend, on her own terms.

Her people, humble by the light, parted for their matriarch.

* * *

Her eyes barely touched the walls of the throne-room. She called for silence, and silence had come. Not a soul dared to bother her in her mourning. Was this mourning? Did she mourn the death of the Lighted world? She lost them, not killed them- a good lot better than she'd expected.

She bared her teeth amusedly, fathoming that path she might have taken. Imp thing meets beast, he growls, imp thing curses wolf into permanent harness… She chuckled slightly at the prospect. What tricks might she have played on the ever-shining Princess, had she another chance? Perhaps played some sort of communicable ghost? Crafted a small braided anklet with which to dangle her from that tall tower window? If only she'd managed a better grip on things more quickly in the Light, she might have had much more fun with the P-princess Zelda.

She closed her eyelids and left her mind to meander through those old, angry memories. Zant, usurping her with a single wave of his hand- and that pain! Pelted in the heart as though his magic, through those long fingernails, tore into it and thrust it to the ground- and her body followed only to stop her death! She felt him too, watched him, a dim light about his body, gaining strength by the second and filtering that sick _stuff_ through his skin. It turned him so close to death he could taste it, the light. And he turned it on her, beat and pulsed it through body, after taken to half death by it himself, by that stupid 'god' of his.

He might have led her people into war with the lighted world! She leaned backward in her throne, a shiver drifting through her body. The _pool_ had seen into _his_ soul and focused on that potential corruption, but had it understood the consequences of choosing _her_? Of choosing Midna, the orphaned trickster?

Midna let her eyes roll backward into her head, relaxing on the throne in unease. The ancient Twili, the banished, cursed the pool with sight- sight in the pitch darkness, and the blinding light, and the lovely, perfect half-light. The pool, for whatever reason, hadn't seen the mixture of the Light world and this realm… despite Zelda's too-sweet words and assurances that their world regretted nothing.

Of course not! Why should the Light world regret sending one of their own too-powerful monstrosities through the Mirror to disrupt her calm? Ha! That world had left her with no choice besides the destruction of their only link.

Link. Midna's lips slipped back into a small smile. That Light boy had some brilliant ferocity, she had to admit. Always, always good for a laugh- though she'd had to pry it out of him. Or his situation. She'd delved into the bright pits of hell, and he'd put a smile on her face. Growling at her like some sort of monster himself, silly beast, he shone like a Sol even covered in fur.

Then again, her eyes might be more sensitive to brightness than that silly Sun-looker's. Folk tales and Twili literatures on life before banishment always lamented the loss of a beautiful ball of fire. Personally, Midna couldn't care less for it. She couldn't bear to keep her own skin in the shine for very long; the stuff was like a diluted form of Zant's horrible magic. No… not _like_… She'd felt _light_ ripping through her chest, suffocating her, crushing her with that transformation. So long, and yet all she could remember came from that flood of impossible pain…

Suddenly the room became so confining, and swelteringly hot. The air thickened in her throat and clung to her very skin as though a million tiny bugs had, invisible, burrowed into her pores. Her mind raced, through everything- Had Zant returned? Link- did he fail with Ganondorf? She didn't actually see… surely he and his Princess wouldn't be so careless.

In panic- she needed to be certain- she willed her body to be wrapped in silk and flown, sifted through solid stone as sand… but something, a nothingness, wouldn't let her! Rematerialized on her own throne, she glanced to the door. Behind that stone, so many of her subjects gathered to welcome her home. Home, thank the Sols, to complain and moan and kneel at her feet- one more question about that stupid Light world and she'd throttle the man to death then and there. Her lungs contracted as the walls caved in her mind, as these strangers never shared her colors and Sols and her unusually thick, brackish air…

Her bare feel nearly touched the throne's stone- and the stone felt like mud. Both legs seemed to sink, though her eyes argued separately. Tangible, but invisible, just as she had been as his shadow, she would _not_ be some creature's shadow keeper! Not ever, not like she'd done to Link, imprisoned in her own body and cursed… Midna tipped her head to that damn ceiling that stayed solid when the rest of the world crashed and melted about her.

Some sound assaulted her ears, and she had a sneaking suspicion that she made it with her own stifled throat. Inside, she reached, into a different place, her own personal world, for that which the mischievous puddle had granted her. Her anger, her fear, everything channeled directly overhead, at the arched roof. The stone cracked, rubble cascaded around her throne, and the soft glow of the orange-lit clouds spread over her face. Immediately, that soft and smooth sensation slipped up her legs and took her body over and into the sky.

The soles of her feet carefully met the dark stone beneath. The Mirror used to be here, before she shattered that dangerous glass, and the Sols still circled endlessly. She dropped to her knees in submission to the very heaviness that had come over her land. Her fingertips felt cool, finally, at home pressing against the dead portal.

The sensations subsided. Her skin freed itself in the perfect Twilight air. Never again would she take for granted not having that wonderfully cool, sweet substance to breathe. The Sols still circled… The place finally felt at peace again, free from the hoards of Twili, bowing and cheering and screaming. Free from Zant and the Light wizard, or whatever the sun-kissed Princess "I-Glow" had called Zant's pseudo-god.

Why? Those Sols had returned home from _his_ sword, but why not return to their pedestals? Why move about as though…

As though the water hadn't cleared yet?


	2. LPrologue 2

Cracks rippled through the mirror.

Links mouth slacked and opened- she'd broken it. Why would she break it? Hadn't they just had this long talk about the goddesses and their intentions? He started, and she looked at him for a moment- at least it felt as though she looked at him. Midna's legs disappeared into shimmers and slinked into the tunnel to the Twilight world.

He watched her face in awestruck horror. Leaving him, and the princess? How could she?

_See you later-_ her last words rang throughout his mind as her face flittered off. Shards scattered, as though afraid of their keeper, of that… tear? Godesses, no- she played a trick on him! She couldn't really be gone, just an illusion. In a few moments, she'd come back, smiling and laughing devilish high-pitched screeching nonsense. He always got the shot end of her jokes. Link watched the portal confidently, waiting to be let in on it.

Any moment now… She'd swoop, dribble out of the sky like some sick, cloud…

He could feel the Princess's eyes on him, knew that she wanted to speak. Her breath had bait, urging him to speak so she didn't have to draw together her will and start it herself. He felt her glove press lightly against his shoulder, wanting to comfort him.

Link snatched away gently, tearing his gaze from the portal. No, she knew, Zelda knew, that wasn't a portal anymore. Just a stone. Just a rock.

His feet took him before his mind had filtered through what his gut realized. Grasping about the thing- futile- the stupid stone didn't give. It didn't move; nothing changed. He couldn't find any hidden switches or secret passageways or disguised openings… just nothing, just rock. Just solid, unyielding, cold dead stone.

"Link-" Hylian, Zelda's voice just dripped with that unwelcome Hylian accent. Shiver spindles coursed down his back. Moments ago, it hadn't been like this. He hadn't minded the golden-haired, golden-crested, golden-crowned "shine girl" and her thick pompous Hylian accent. What he wouldn't give to hear Midna's evil little cackle again, or maybe just one more _Are you stupid? Don't do that! _

She'd had to screech that particular phrase all the time.

He wanted to melt into that nostalgia, but it flashed past him before he could breathe again. The princess had just finished her search for words, seemingly, and now she approached him. But he wouldn't listen. No. Not to her. She drove Midna away. Unless, had he done it himself?

"Link, she's still there. She's just on the other side of our world…" Zelda spoke softly, maintaining her distance this time.

"She just did what she thought was best. That was her decision to make." Her decision, _decision_, had been just to take off- in the blink of an eye- and cut all the strings that might have tied the three of them together. He didn't have the words to make the princess understand, not now.

"Link, come home with me." Her voice lingered at the edge of his mind, but suddenly staying away from her seemed so important. If he went with the Princess, with Zelda, he'd lose his best friend forever. She'd convince him to let Midna go her own way. She wouldn't even try to find a way, if he went with her.

"That's your home!" One thought circled through his mind, even while he stormed past Zelda and her entourage and her crowd of worshippers…

_Why did this happen? What am I supposed to do?_


	3. ZPrologue 3

For a moment, a small blonde child flew through the phantom castles' walls, tagging knights in short succession. She talked to them with the excited fervor that only a toddler could, her legs stamping rhythmically to any distress. Where her father might have ridden off to, she neither knew nor cared, not while playing tag. Her best friend followed the little princess everywhere, in and out of reality like no one else.

Now, that tiny child flittered more than Sariah had in her youth. Zelda couldn't bear to think on it any longer, the walls she used to tell all her secrets in rubble on the ground. No knights had survived, not since her father's death. She hadn't meant to let them die out, but their nobility and stature had waned and inside they'd decayed. She let each go, as they asked for relief.

She had no one anymore- Not even the walls.

The hem of her gown tattered as she wove her way through the cable. Long ago she'd abandoned her slippers, and that damned tiara. That damned sword and that damned belt those damned shoulder guards- all gone, everything cast aside with her castle…

Zelda collapsed, exhausted, prostrating herself underneath the noon sun. The trip back to Hyrule had taken the entire night, and her own worry kept her awake. Link had trampled off, to where only the goddesses knew, and might die out there. The light shined onto her bare arms and feet, warming them… burning them.

She couldn't bring herself to care. After all this time, after all she'd sacrificed just to keep her kingdom alive, why keep moving? No more imminent threat, and the Hylian princess had voided every meaning she could muster.

Her eyes wandered about the sky, watching for menacing clouds… The sun shone more brightly than it ever had before, curling about her face as though molding to her very skin. She bathed in the stuff, nearly in sleep, so close to the walls she could feel giving way to death in her mind.

**

* * *

**

"Princess, princess…" Zelda paced across the freshly sweating stone of Lanayru's cavern, quietly disturbing the sacred place with her own mutterings. "You've done it this time. Ran off the only friends you ever had. The only people that bothered to treat you like a human, anyway…"

She glanced at her hands, ornamented only with her protruding sleeves. Two slender wrists held the pale tentacles upward, before the incandescent liquid. She couldn't have shone brighter if she'd been a star herself, as though something came from deep within her skin. Oh, but she knew.

"Nayru, my goddess, you entrusted me with something I do not deserve. What can you do now but ...take it back?" Zelda's whispers barely reached to the end of her nose, her nearly silent opposition in effect. What could she do? Why did this glow not grant her wisdom, as the legend stated? She felt so lost now, so unsteady.

How ironic that, now that she had the wisdom granted by the tri-force, that she shouldn't want it. Knowing the right path didn't make taking it any easier- why hadn't her father taught her that one? When he'd shown her, 'proved' to her, that she had a proper right to the gift of the goddesses, and Link… then might have been the best time to warn her. Her mother hadn't developed this problem, and Link hadn't. Ganondorf certainly hadn't.

Damn her 'wisdom.' Rational or irrational, she got the short end of the stick, she pondered. She couldn't rescue Midna with her 'wisdom,' or defeat Ganon with her 'wisdom.' She couldn't put the Mirror of Twilight back together or rebuild her castle or even figure out why she kept getting these gods-forsaken headaches with her too-little too-late 'wisdom.'

She clutched her head and covered her eyes as well as she could, but that stupid light got into her everywhere. But what had she expected? The goddesses were everywhere. Even, apparently, in her blood.

She shook her aching head. How long could she maintain a diplomatic front… inside her own body?


	4. MPrologue 4

Red strings of lightning flitted slowly through the watery pool, barely reflecting the two fixed eyes above. Midna hadn't blinked for hours in her silent, futile standoff with the substance that made her life so wrecked. Spells of panic would come over her periodically, acute claustrophobia, fear of everything extreme- but aversion to the pain kept her rooted to the stone below and in constant battle with the _pool. _She'd talked to the damn seeing-puddle so much, recently. Though, come to think of it, her talking had gotten to be more like screaming and cursing and fighting…

Stupid, she supposed, to fight with something that couldn't fight back. Then again, the Light world hadn't fought back against her precious Twilight- not until that furry puppy-boy had come along, and she'd graciously offered her own help.

Of course, that Twilight hadn't been her Twilight- that had been Zant's sick Lighted-Twilight, courtesy of his fake god. Ganondorf, the shiny-wizard thing, had gotten his hands on some serious power; Midna ran the final moments of that castle over in her mind- the radiating insides of that dark relic, the brief understanding of some eternal freedom as her body pulsed with its own magic, then the fire.

The fire of that Light wizard, the scorch of his forced light- she fought through that, focusing as she never needed before that point, her vision in perfect understanding within that helmet. That ball of fire, angry and evil, filled every space in the absentee-Princess's tower, and tried to force itself through her. And when she wouldn't let it…

Midna allowed herself to think elsewhere, back to blaming the pool rather than the ghost of some power-hungry idiot not even from her world. That threesome, the Princess, the Peasant, and the Wizard, had quite the little scheme going with that Tri-Force. Simply ignore the injustices done to anyone un-blest by the Light-goddesses! If only Twili history could do the same. Already, Zant's puppetry and invasion of the light world had etched its way into the stone canvases.

More painfully, her own failure to defeat the Light Wizard had also been permanently engraved in effervescent blue. Damn this stupid pool for sending her to that god-riddled, sunny, too-hot, too-bright, ghost-filled, _passive_ world!

"Why did you pick me?!" She screamed, shrill and impassioned into the self sustained light of the _pool. _The pool, the pool, why did she keep coming back to this stupid pool? The pool couldn't bring back her dignity, not after her disgrace as that ugly imp, not after consorting with the treacherous light-dwellers, not after her failure against that … giant face of flames. No! That sword-wielding wolfie and the glowing Light-chick had to do that for her.

If they could have killed him, why banish him in the first place? If they'd just been thorough to begin with, she'd never have been morphed into that disproportioned gremlin, or thrown through the damn mirror into the light, or nearly killed by a giant glowing snake! Spirit or not, she still felt the distinct need to chop that stupid thing's head clean off.

Imp-ness hadn't been so very disappointing, she supposed. She'd always wished she could be smaller, more agile. Her features might have been proportioned by a blind man, but that elfish thing had become part of her being. Zant, or Zant's magic rather, tricked her into that body, too tight, and once she'd grown used to her perverted Twili suit, she'd made herself fond. She sneered at the all seeing pool, she remembered, and teased it. _This is not the face you chose! _She'd enlighten to the dim shimmers and vast intense darkness face-to-surface, but the damn magic had washed away her hiding face and pulled her back into the leader's body.

She'd still been the poorly-titled princess when her caterpillar morph had floated and spoken, despite how she wished to trick herself.

For the first time in hours, days, she shook her head. Something that Zelda had said irked her… at the close of her stay in the sun. Momentarily preoccupied with how to make that exit quick and painless, she hadn't taken to heart the blonde-one's antics. Sure, the Hyrulean princess always spoke eloquently, and with a purpose, and without error, but she'd been hoping for something slightly less deep.

_Light and Shadow are two sides of the same coin... _Such a sentiment was very sweet and appropriate and _politic _during their parting, but somehow it meant more to her now, significantly more than the possess-able girl could imagine it to be.

Midna eyed the pool again, carefully, trying to discern the reality of her discernment. Light comes during the day, darkness during the night, but dusk and dawn exist only for the bridge between the two stages. She stared at the throne-room's remodeled ceiling through the reflection in the pool. The sky's red and blue streaks calmed her, placated her mind.

If she called the day "Light," and "Twilight" dusk and dawn, then… where would the darkness of night exist?

The _pool _moved and swirled, finally with something to tell her.


	5. LPrologue 5

Entwined fingers gripped her mane hard, creating tender patches of skin well beneath the white-blond twine. Hooves hit the dirt, echoing deep into the near-silent rustles of the night field.

Hyrule field- he'd had to fight his way through this place countless times. The undead wolves, the boarish boar-riding giants, Ganon… What sort of place could so suddenly go from absolute turbulence to this mind-numbing peace? Yes, he'd wanted peace. He'd fought for peace.

But peace was killing him.

Epona ripped through the small tufts of reed-grass, paving the way for… no one. No grotesque half-human goblinoids, no twisted, tainted Twili… No Midna.

A pang of guilt sank into his stomach. He'd hated her once, twice, for weeks… Every time she'd shown her face then, he could only think of how long he'd have to wait before he could hack it off. He'd been so sure that little… thing, that she'd been evil. And she had! There's no way her wicked ways could be described as anything but evil, at first. Even now, they hadn't _changed_. He just wanted them _back_.

Epona leaped over an oddly placed gate without any conscious thought from her rider. He glanced up, loosening his grip on her mane slightly. She'd taken him back to Ordon ranch. The corners of his mouth tipped downward- he hadn't wanted to come back here, not yet. He still needed to work things out.

Perhaps he could still run? He repositioned himself on Epona's back and bent his knees inward, circling about to jump the gate again. Mind elsewhere, he finally found some small reprieve from his racing thoughts, preparing to jump the gate.

Epona soared over, far clearing the slab of wood. The artificial wind flipped through his cap, but he couldn't care. He felt as though he flew again, shot up through a cannon… trickled up through the sky. That grin flashed inside again, her grin.

His chest constricted severely as he watched. He'd lost his breath, Epona bucked after her landing, and he fell hard onto his still-laden back. Exhausted, her whinny and clopping hoof beats seemed a world away to Link. She'd run, he knew, as he stared involuntarily at the bright sky above and the dark edges flittering about his vision.

His breath returned in short spurts, barely enough to keep him from falling asleep. Stuck motionless, he relaxed for the first time in… Not that time actually meant anything to him now. He could be fifty, a thousand, dead, and still nothing would change. His life felt hopeless, worthless, now. Ganon no longer posed a threat. His tenure as 'The Hero of Twilight' meant less than… less than 'poor, peasant, goat-farmer from Ordon.' He didn't want to live in the palace, he didn't want to become a knight, and he definitely didn't want a place on the royal court. He couldn't even imagine himself dressed in gold-laden magnificence, to match that of her Hylian Royal Highness.

He'd grown fond of the odd green tunic Faron had bestowed- rather magicked- onto him. For days, Midna had laughed at his expense for this outfit, and the one before it, and the sudden change, and his reaction to Faron's new gift, and a million things. Goddesses, _what he'd do_- to have her back and joking and sporadically screeching over his stupidity! Anything-

The light of the sky above, even in the afternoon hours, made his eyes ache.

He'd finally regained his breath enough to turn away from the sun and attempt to stand. Forcing his shaking legs to take his weight, numb from clutching Epona's sides, he brushed the dust from his front.

"Link!" An unplaced squeal caught in the air around the newly standing Link, and Ilia ambushed him, tying him about the middle with her arms. "Is everything alright now?" The bags under her eyes worried him, and how thin she'd gotten. He smiled half-heartedly and squeezed her some, reminiscent of how they used to hug.

"Yes. Z… The Princess said so anyway." The slender girl backed off from him, realizing embarrassedly that she'd latched herself onto him much too long.

"What's that supposed to mean? Do you not think so?" A small, hidden frown rested between her eyebrows. He worried her now, but she should have been worried then. Losing her memory hadn't been her fault, but he hadn't lost his. –No, that was a selfish way to think. Irrational. The Princess wouldn't approve.

Ha! But Midna would… have. At the very least, she would have understood. Midna had never liked Ilia, as far as he could tell. She hated that his best friend, that Ilia, couldn't fight or think or do anything useful. She, though she'd used Link's need to rescue her, despised that this girl always played the damsel in distress.

"Link? You in there?" She peered with her pale green eyes into his face, hoping to get a glance at what he was thinking.

"Yes. No. I…" Link stammered, pulled back into the real world by her voice, by her question. Was he even there? He wanted to stay in his imaginary world, where he, and Midna, and even Zelda could fight together for _something_ again. Hyrule, the Twilight realm… anything, what didn't even matter.

"You _what_, Link?" She put her hands forward, hoping to comfort him, but deathly afraid of what he might do if she touched him. He backed away fervently, ignoring the hurt look on her face, as callously as he had ignored Zelda's.

"I don't know." He couldn't take staring at his old life anymore, his old self that still lived in her eyes. He ran, horse-less, still far outdistancing the poor farm-girl, and Zelda, and Midna, and the Goddesses, and… _everyone._

He could escape _almost_ everyone…


	6. ZPrologue 6

Her subjects had rebuilt her throne room. She'd called for assistance in constructing the destroyed portion of the city, and they'd fixed her _throne _room before anything else. She needed the reprieve, and the semi-quiet, away from the pounding light of Lake Hylia's temple. Zelda needed to seem as though she remained the sturdy, just figure her father had been, and she had been before…

She crossed her legs over the arm of her throne, lounging as though she'd never been schooled in royal etiquette. When no one watched her, which nearly never happened, she used to abandon decorum and dance about the rooms. She used to pretend that she could fly, that she could be free. That she couldn't even imagine that anymore, she couldn't even pretend, amused her. She had no hope of ever wrenching her life away from her responsibilities.

Her blood doomed her here.

She sighed audibly, allowing herself to slide into a more acceptable position on the cushion. Her eyes flicked up, aware of movement at the door. A man stood to the side, quivering in his very boots. Perhaps he'd become deterred by the elaborate decorations that her people had set for her. Her personal favorite lavish ornament- despite it's compared lack of value- hung on the wall over the doorway. Her vision caught on the painting for a moment as she rolled her eyes, demonstrating her unrestrained conduct since her apparent freedom. After so many years of breathing in but never breathing out, letting her emotions loose felt fantastic. Several seconds passed before she addressed her company below her painting.

"Do you have it?" Her voice sounded so foreign to her. The sounds were pleasant, but somehow terribly off key. Her head had begun to throb again. Dear goddesses, she supposed, she couldn't be safe anywhere. The man at the door hadn't bothered to answer her question, still unsure of his place in the overwhelmingly beautiful room.

"… You may speak, Shad." Her headache sensitized her to the noise trickling through the ceiling. She missed the silence, even the unnatural calm, of the Twilight. The man at the doorway pressed his glasses upward, onto his nose, nervously repositioning the pack on his back, dipping into a bow, as he tried to find his words to suit royalty.

"Yes, Princess." He bowed extraneously once again, to be quite sure that his respects to the young princess were paid. "I have what you asked for." Zelda's curiosity peaked and she set forward on her seat's edge, barely aware that her blood pulsed violently within her skull. Her excitement blinded her to herself.

"Excellent." She stood and beckoned him forward, stretching out her hands to take what he took from his bag. Her hands molded around the dark stone gently, in awe. She couldn't have guessed that the thing was rock from it's feel- smooth, with sharp grooves chiseled perfectly. The craftsmanship on this … She glanced up, needing to ask the deliverer a question.

"No, Shad. Don't leave. Come. Talk with me for a moment." Zelda commanded, seating herself again on her throne. Shad stepped forward obediently, and yet again, he bowed. She couldn't quite find her purpose yet, though her headache made planning difficult.

"Ye..yes, Princess." His voice sounded extraordinarily meek, as though his stomach had dropped into his feet. She could see his knees shake noticeably- and she ignored all his nervousness and broke the dam on her thoughts.

"You spent quite a bit of time with Link, didn't you?" Zelda's fingers traced the canyons of the headpiece absentmindedly, her eyes glaring deep into the helmet as though she could see through. Shad lowered his eyes consciously, not wanting to embarrass her in her reverie.

"I suppose. Not really though. Mostly I read when he showed up with information. I never could tell how he-" Zelda sighed internally. Goddesses, he spoke quickly. At least his accent didn't have the awful drawl of so many of her more rural subjects. Her thoughts wandered internally, and throwing diplomatic caution to the wind, she cut Shad off with a wave.

"Shad, I need you to tell me about Link for a moment…" She paused hoping he would take the bait. He wouldn't talk now, not a single word; he only stared blankly at the floor. "Specifically, how did he interact with Midna?" His eyebrows ticked unexpectedly, as he attempted to process her words. Zelda started, reprimanding herself internally for thinking so horribly of her subjects. She was their princess, not their master; she should think of all her constituents in the loving, respectful way her father had taught her.

"Who?" Shad glanced up into her face, barely meeting her eyes for a moment. He couldn't keep his stare there for more than that... not against royalty. Anyone even, he hadn't been raised to dominate. He'd been raised to read.

"Midna- The shadow being that followed him everywhere?" Zelda explained- had he not known? A sliver of doubt crossed her mind as his confusion lingered… What had she done? But the Twilight Princess had abandoned the light world- her mistake couldn't bring on a veritable witch hunt against her malicious little helper. She frowned suddenly, as Shad tried to find the words to respond… If Midna hadn't closed that Mirror, that might have doomed her world. Damn responsibilities.

"Oh. Well, I vaguely remember him talking to it… or rather, 'Midona' snapped at him. Quite feisty, that thing- I nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw-" Zelda's expression confused him, ripping apart all his suppositions as to how a Ruler might think. He couldn't see any logical breakdown of her features… no rhyme or reason… nothing.

"Shad, focus please." She snapped at him, jerking his rambling to a halt.

"My deepest apologies Princess," His gaze dropped immediately to the floor. She pursed her lips slightly, trying to develop a plan to keep his information flowing. Before the Twilight infestation, she'd have never so rudely interrupted a member of her own lands. She hadn't jumped on Link as Midna left, but now she'd snapped at Shad, who'd done nothing to her in the slightest. His family had never been anything but a help to her and her family.

"For now, at least, you may call me Zelda." She allotted a small token to him, and from what she knew of his family, a personable association with a Hylian ruler could top _almost _anything.

"Yes Pr… Errm- Zelda." Shad stammered, nearly drooling over the prospect of calling her by her name, rather than her title. He needn't seem obnoxiously eager, so he held himself back, forcing himself to replicate habitual ignorance. Zelda seemed pleased with his performance, and turned her attention back to the stone in her lap.

"Tell me about this- well, what is it?" She gestured to her lovely new piece of ornamentation, though unlike every other piece in the pre-decimation of her castle, this had not been gilded.

"I'd guess a helmet of some sort, but I've never seen anything like it. It's almost evil… No, I'm sure that it is. It's not at all like the sky being technology- more dark." He poured over the piece securely fastened by her hands to her body. He doubted sheer levitation could pry that stone from its new master.

"Mmmm… How so?" Zelda stared hard into the rock, as though trying to make it speak to her. Shad's voice had a distant, echoing quality to it as the soft sounds reached her ears. Zelda, as peculiar as it seemed, could only hear what her informer said several seconds after the words had wandered into the universe.

"Look at these markings. This mark is similar to our mark of truth, but no rays. Historically, the rays originate from the sun, which spreads truth through all things. Symbolically, this horn would represent awareness, similar to an ear might for listening." The princess's expression cut deeper into her face, as she'd seen fit to analyze what he needed to say, and design

"Perhaps _secrets_ then?" Her royal highness suggested, insinuating an opaquely concealed joke that no one besides herself and her father would have understood. Why she insisted on making them, she hadn't quite worked through. Secrets did seem like a feasible answer in all seriousness, all jokes ignored… as usual.

"I doubt it. This particular relic shard has no mouth, alluding that its bearer must see and hear all truth, then interpret using the bearer's own wisdom. Hence the act comes from within the bearer." The whites of her eyes shone for a moment, though Shad didn't notice in the slightest, still staring modestly at her feet. Her feet- really that interesting?

"How do you know all this?" She asked in mild diplomacy. Whether interested or not, a ruler must always. Listening keeps the peasantry loyal, and loyalty keeps royalty.

"Runes. They aren't like anything I've seen before- but some of the traits are similar. Then again, Princess, I'm only guessing." Sure enough, his eyes flicked upward to hers momentarily, his breath sped up, and he baited it for her reply. Ah, she knew what she should do, what her diplomat father and his diplomat father and his diplomat father would do. Now, diplomacy didn't seem so important. Now, diplomacy seemed like a waste of her life.

"Given your previous accuracy, I'm inclined to trust your guesses." The words slipped out. She couldn't break her habits, not immediately. Shad watched her eyes subdue and her face fall. Something couldn't be right with the Princess.

"Thank you, Princess." Shad started to leave, twisting about on his feet. Zelda's voice hit him in the back like an arrow, suddenly alert again.

"Zelda." She demanded. He nodded apologetically, backing out of the throne room with as much respectful as he could muster speed. He couldn't stay, not with that tense, confused aura floating around Princess Zelda.

She watched Shad leave, taking his pack with him. Wisdom, he'd said. Could that have been a coincidence? Could everything be a coincidence?

Had there ever been any coincidence? In her life?

She held Midna's stone helmet in front of her, staring into its eye. She couldn't have possibly left it here, not without a purpose. What could that purpose be other than to accentuate…

Why was she waiting? She could feel in her gut, in her heart, that she needed to do this. She held the piece high over her head and coaxed it gently over her blonde mass of hair. The pits of her lungs bit against her chest, and suddenly, strangely, she'd paralyzed with fear. Goddesses, what she wouldn't do for a smidgen of Link's courage.

The princess ground her teeth together- after all these years of chastisement for that low-class tendency, _that_ gave her all the gall she needed.

With one deep breath, she plunged headfirst into the Twilight relic.


End file.
